


Devil with an Easy Grin

by ladyshadowdrake



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Fluff, M/M, OR IS IT, One Night Stand, gallery owner steve, no powers au, security contractor tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 22:42:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11541927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyshadowdrake/pseuds/ladyshadowdrake
Summary: Steve meets a charismatic stranger at a club for a one night stand, and expects to never see him again.





	Devil with an Easy Grin

Devil with an Easy Grin

 

It might have been the darkness. Or the three whiskey sours smoothing all the anxiety out of his shoulders. It could have been being back ‘home’ after years away and nothing actually feeling like home. It could have been the pulse of the music, or the press of bodies making him feel claustrophobic and warm. It could have been the mingled smells of cologne, sweat, and the ozone sharp smell of fog. Most likely it was the whiskey, but the red light bathing the man’s body as he moved like a serpent on the dance floor couldn’t be discounted either. He glistened with sweat, the dark tank top soaked to his skin, light rolling off him like a living thing. He was the Devil with an easy grin, and Steve had just enough religion in his bones to know what that meant.

He left the bar and slid into the writing mass of bodies on the floor. He arched away from or into strangers’ hands, not sure when he was moving away and when he was leaning into each caress. A tiny blonde sidetracked him for a moment by catching him with one hand on his neck and one leg around his hip. He lifted her straight off her feet and she smiled down at him, her teeth glowing chemical green, lips black in the light. She moved her hips against him in a slow roll and it might be nice to feel her do that again, but his eyes kept pulling away. He set her down and she twisted away without protest, finding another willing body to cling to in the tangle of flesh.

Steve thought he’d been the one hunting the Devil, but when he turned again, the Devil was there with his wicked smile. Steve slid into his arms like they knew each other. His heart beat a frantic counter rhythm to the music – it was so far off base for him that he barely recognized his own limbs, wasn’t aware his hips could move that way – and they didn’t, really, it was the Devil’s hands guiding him like he was on strings. The music wound to a slow drop and the Devil rose up to put his mouth against Steve’s ear.

“Thought I was going to have fight for you,” he said with a laugh that seemed genuine and amused. He pulled back just long enough to catch Steve’s eye. “Bet you look nice on white sheets, angel.”

Steve swallowed hard and fought down the panicky impulse to ask him out for coffee and pancakes. His hands clutched at the Devil’s hips, both of them still swaying together like a warm-up. _What are you doing?_ he asked himself, but when the Devil tipped his head and lifted an eyebrow, Steve brought up a smile of his own and asked, “Would you like to find out?”

~*~

“What do I call you?” Steve asked, voiced muffled against the Devil’s throat. He didn’t know if his dance partner would appreciate the nickname, but the warm chuckle he felt vibrating under his lips made him think that maybe he would. Steve thought that he wasn’t going to answer, and it could have been bad one night stand protocol to ask for a name, but Steve wouldn’t know, because it was the first time he’d picked a stranger up from a club and followed him to a bed.

“Hmm… you can call me Tony,” the Devil said finally with just enough hesitation that Steve guessed it wasn’t his real name, but that was alright.

“Tony,” he repeated, trying the sounds out. He liked the way they felt on his tongue, sharp to start, but smooth and soft at the end. It was the kind of name he could say with half a breath, and if the way his lungs were heaving was any indication, half a breath might be all he would get.

“Better come up with a name soon,” Tony said after an eternity of Steve just mouthing at his neck, tasting the salt on his skin, “Or I’ll come up with one for you.”

Steve wondered vaguely what kind of name Tony would have made up for him, but he didn’t think he could stand it if someone he was in bed with said any name other than his. “Steve,” he said.

“Unimaginative,” Tony tutted.

“Anymoreso than ‘Tony’?” Steve replied, but he barely waited for the shrug and noise of agreement before nudging Tony to lay flat on his back. The room was dark but for the city lights streaming in through the window. It felt naughty to be so exposed, even knowing that no one could possibly see in when they were fifty-two floors up and in the dark. He bit at Tony’s shoulder hard enough to leave a mark and Tony arched into him with a curse. Steve tried to pull away to apologize, but Tony grabbed the back of his head with both hands and held him there, lifting his legs to wrap around Steve’s hips.

“You want me to mark you?” Steve asked, half playful, and half uncertain. He liked to leave marks – he was a _very_ efficient mark maker, in fact – but was he supposed to put that kind of claim on someone he would probably never see in daylight?

“ _Yes_ ,” Tony answered on a low hiss. “Anywhere that won’t show above a collar. _Everywhere_ that won’t show above a collar,” he amended, and sounded somewhat unhappy about the constraint, but maybe he had to visit his grandmother the next day and didn’t need a giant hickey behind his ear.

Steve kissed the place deliberately, nuzzling behind Tony’s ear and lathing his tongue over the sensitive skin. Tony’s thighs were like vices were they clamped around his waist and he shivered convulsively when Steve blew across the wet patch of skin and dragged his mouth down the line of Tony’s neck. He hooked one finger in the neck of Tony’s tank top and pulled it down so he could sink his teeth into the swell of muscle where his pectoral and deltoid met. He sucked on the mark until he could taste the faint tinge of metal and then let it go with a wet _pop_. Tony collapsed under him, breathing heavily, fingers digging into the back of Steve’s neck.

Steve would have ripped the tank top down the front, but it felt rude, so he just pushed the hem up to get to Tony’s ribs and abs, leaving a trail of marks to keep track of his progress, like breadcrumbs in a maze. Tony turned out to have a ticklish spot in the hollow of his hipbone and Steve teased it with the tip of his tongue until Tony’s muscles were fluttering under him. He nudged the slinky knit pants down, realizing with a spark of amusement that they were pajama pants. Steve had been seduced from across the room by a man with calloused fingers, who had perhaps decided to leave his penthouse suite at the Four Seasons for a late night stroll to the club down the street. In his pajamas. Steve ran his tongue along the seam of Tony’s hip, sucked a deep mark into his inner thigh, and transferred his mouth to the head of Tony’s cock the moment he released the mouthful of soft skin.

Tony jerked and dug his heels into Steve’s back. He didn’t protest when Steve peeled his hands off the back of his head and compliantly fisted them in the sheets when Steve held his wrists there. It started out with a soft whisper, barely audible over the sound of his breath, and within seconds Tony was alternately encouraging and pleading with him, using the leverage of his heels over Steve’s shoulders to push his hips off the bed. When encouragement and pleas didn’t get him what he wanted, he tilted his head back and just cursed in a long string. Steve knew his toes were curled back because of the tension in his calves, and the sounds he made when Steve pressed down that last inch to feel Tony’s cockhead push into his throat were almost enough to make him come untouched.

~*~

Steve’s breath came out as a sob when Tony pulled a third orgasm out of him in less than two hours. He was slick with sweat and felt as fatigued as he would have from swimming a marathon. He shuddered and twitched with aftershocks, his muscles protesting weakly to the activity as Tony worked his way back up Steve’s body with lazy open-mouthed kisses.

“I’m not sure that you’re human,” Tony said, voice filled with sated warmth, and at least a little bit of admiration. “Maybe I had it right when I called you an angel. Or you’re an alien.”

Steve laughed and put a hand over his burning ab muscles. He may have a quick reset time, but Tony had stamina for miles and Steve was past sated and creeping into the territory of over-stimulated. “You found me out,” he said with the air of a confession. He tried to lift a hand to make a disappointed gesture, but it took too much energy, so he let it fall back to the bed.

“So which is it?” Tony asked curiously. He sat up cross-legged at Steve’s side and picked up his hand to examine his fingers in the pale light of the city’s glow. When Steve didn’t answer, Tony glanced at him and clarified, “Angel or alien?”

“Well,” Steve mused thoughtfully, surprised that he couldn’t summon even a hint of a blush, “If I were either, I probably couldn’t tell you.”

“Or you’d have to kill me?” Tony guessed. He stuck two of Steve’s fingers in his mouth and lathed them with the flat of his tongue, pushing the tip in between them, and curling it around Steve’s ring finger.

“Maybe I would just abduct you,” Steve answered distractedly.

Tony let his fingers go with a _pop_. “Alien, then. I knew it.”

“Why alien?”

“Angels don’t abduct people,” Tony said authoritatively.

“Says who? Seems like if I were an angel and said I was going to abduct you, I would be the authority on the matter, wouldn’t I?” Steve obligingly turned his hand over so Tony could trace down the inside of his arm like he was looking for a zipper.

“Are you telling me that you _are_ an angel?”

Steve laughed again and pulled his hand out of Tony’s grip. “I’m not going to win this.” He set his hand on Tony’s knee and rubbed his thumb in a small circle over a curved scar.

Tony covered his hand, stilling the motion of his fingers. “Fell out of a tree when I was twelve,” he explained briefly, but he didn’t push Steve’s hand away.

Steve propped himself up on an elbow to the protest of his abs. He ran a finger over the long line on the inside of Tony’s thigh, soothing at the edges of it.

“Sheet metal slipped.” A patch on his hip was, “Welding drunk. Not one of my better decisions.” And flecks of raised skin on his chest made Tony go quiet. “Hot metal,” he said finally.

Steve let his hand drop away. “I’m getting the impression that you work with metal and heat.”

Tony made a sound of agreement and didn’t elaborate. Steve dropped it and just let his hand drift over Tony’s skin, unconsciously tracing and counting every scar. There were an alarming number of them stretched out over Tony’s toned muscles. If it weren’t for the outrageously expensive suite in the outrageously expensive hotel, Steve would have pegged him for a clumsy mechanic with all the scars and callouses. Maybe he was a fellow artist who made a spectacular living on sculpture. Tony let him explore, his eyes like a branding iron on the side of Steve’s face. He didn’t offer any further explanations for his scars, but moved where Steve directed with no complaints. Steve ended up on his back with Tony’s head pillowed in the hollow of his shoulder, his fingers drifting over Tony’s arm in meaningless patterns.

Between one heavy blink and the next, the night sky faded into pewter and gold. Steve blinked at the window, briefly uncertain of where he was and why. The bed was easily twice the size of his temporary bed at the hotel, and the sheets smelled like lavender and sandalwood. By the time he turned his head, the memory of the handsome stranger in his pajamas was already on pleasant replay. Tony was still asleep on the opposite side of the bed, curled so tightly around a pillow that it almost looked painful.

Shifting, Steve extended one hand to wake him, but stopped. From the light, Steve guessed that it was just after five. Tony looked like he could use the sleep, and Steve didn’t want to disturb him. He moved backwards to the edge of the bed and slid out from under the sheet. Grabbing the pen and the pad of stationary off the bedside table, he sat for several minutes and stared at it, lip creeping in between his teeth in that old nervous tick that his mom had failed to break when he was a kid.

Casting an uncertain glance back at Tony, Steve jotted down his phone number, scrawled his name under it, and left the pad on his pillow. He sorted through the mess of clothing on the floor to pick out his jeans, crumpled blue shirt, and one black sock. He had to get on his knees to fish the other out from under the bed, and had to stretch to grab his shoe by one lace to rescue it from the center of the bed. How it had ended up so far under the bed was beyond him, but his other shoe was waiting neatly where he’d toed it off.

Tony didn’t so much as stir in the time it took Steve to get dressed, and Steve hesitated again at the door, debating between waking Tony up for a kiss – morning breath and all – and tearing up his note before Tony could find it. Maybe it wasn’t good one night stand etiquette to leave his number, but Steve wouldn’t mind seeing him again, and it wasn’t like he left the note with a wedding ring attached. Letting himself out before he could change his mind and ruin whatever small chance there was of seeing Tony again, Steve took the elevator back down to the lobby. He ducked his head to avoid the doorman’s eyes, and hailed a cab.

~*~

“Someone is wearing the same shirt he went out in,” Sam noted as Steve passed him into the gallery’s interior. He hiked an eyebrow at Steve and Steve waved a hand at him dismissively. Sam set the paint swatches down and followed him through the lobby into the gallery proper.

“Did you actually get _laid_ , Steven Rogers?” Sam asked, astonished, dogging his steps even when Steve took to the stairs at a jog. Bucky met him at the top of the stairs, called out of the office by Sam’s unnecessarily loud question. He had his eyebrows furrowed together and mouth open to speak, but stopped. He gave Steve a lengthy once-over that still made Steve flush even with the memory of Tony’s hands on his hips, the slight throb of the bruises he’d left.

“You went out in that shirt last night,” Bucky observed finally. Steve shrugged and slid sideways past him. Bucky and Sam followed him into the office and stood side-by-side with their arms crossed over their chests in nearly identical ‘I’m waiting’ poses.

“You two have been around each other too long,” Steve groused, rummaging in his desk and coming up with a neatly folded button down plaid shirt. He yanked last night’s t-shirt over his head, pulled a package of baby wipes out of the other drawer and rubbed roughly at his chest and underarms with a handful of them. By the time he looked up, they were giving him identical raised eyebrows.

Steve pointed in between them. “See that? That proves my point.” He dropped the package of wipes back into the drawer, scooped up his deodorant, and tried to ignore the pointed stares of his best friends.

“You know,” Bucky said finally, “If I didn’t know you sleep in here more often than not, I would wonder about your nighttime activities.”

“Just tell me it wasn’t Natasha,” Sam added.

Steve blinked at him. “Not that it wouldn’t be great if she were interested, but I’m pretty sure Wanda would decapitate me if I tried.”

“And probably not the head on your shoulders,” Bucky said by way of agreement. Next to him, Sam nodded. Steve winced. “So who was it?”

“What makes you think it’s someone you know?” Steve asked, straightening his collar and glancing down to make sure his buttons were lining up.

“ _You_ had a one night stand?” Sam asked dubiously. “Right,” he said with a snort. “It was Clint, wasn’t it?”

“Not unless it was Clint _and_ Phil, and there would probably be more marks,” Bucky mused. His eyes were narrowed dangerously as he examined every visible inch of Steve’s skin, looking for any clues.

Ignoring them both, Steve tucked his shirt into his pants, rolled his sleeves up, and grabbed his clipboard off the desk. Bucky reached out to him as he passed and Steve let his friend even out his cuffs. “You smell like someone else’s aftershave,” he noted quietly, eyes intense where they met Steve’s, part curiosity and part something darker, something like jealousy, possessiveness. Steve recognized it, but he didn’t know what to do about it – their friendship was rock solid, but whatever the fooling around as teenagers had meant had been made uneasy by two tours in Iraq and a roadside bomb, and they hadn’t quite come back from it.

“Leave it alone,” Steve said softly. Bucky swallowed, took a slow breath, and nodded. He pulled his hands away from Steve’s arm and shuffled back one step so Steve could get to the door. Steve hesitated, but reached out and brushed the back of his fingers over Bucky’s shoulder, dislodging a fluffy piece of lint.

“Okay, but we get to meet this guy, right?” Sam asked as if he’d missed the whole exchange.

Steve just shrugged, smiled broadly, and walked out the door. The gallery wasn’t going to open itself.

~*~

Steve probably needed a shower, but sometimes he would turn just right and catch the scent of Tony’s spicy cologne, or twist his hips and feel that deep burn that reminded him of the way the sheets felt on his chest. He could have left for a trip to the gym three blocks away and grabbed a quick shower, and he kept saying that he would after the next task, but he kept finding other tasks that kept him running around the gallery instead. He had a sandwich in one hand and a drafting pencil in the other when Bucky tracked him down an hour after what should have been lunch time. Steve made a quick notation on the blueprint copies and glanced up, drawing an oversized piece of pepperoni into his mouth with quick nibbles.

“The contractor is here for the safe,” Bucky explained, holding onto the door frame to lean into the office.

Steve groaned around a mouthful of lettuce and pepperoni. He still had a list a mile long of little tasks to complete – everything from picking bathroom fixtures, to taking the electrician to task, to contracting a photographer for the opening.

“I thought that was tomorrow,” he said, swallowing hastily and folding the paper back around the sandwich.

“It was supposed to be yesterday, but the consultant didn’t show. I told them that if they didn’t get someone down here today I was going to hire Hammer regardless of the bid.”

Steve gave him a dubious look. “But you’re not going to, right?”

“Well, the contractor is here, so probably not.” Bucky narrowed his eyes. “Unless he annoys me.”

“You’re not going to compromise our vault security just because the guy annoys you,” Steve said warningly. He put the sandwich down safely away from his blueprint copies and hastily wiped his mouth and fingers with the flimsy paper napkin. “Did they say why the consultant didn’t make it yesterday?”

“Something about a family emergency.” Bucky shrugged one shoulder and handed Steve the folder with SECURITY written across the front in Sam’s block letters.

“Well, we can’t hold that against them,” Steve said vaguely. He flipped through the pages, glancing over the specs for both vaults. The Hammer Ultra9000 looked pretty, but mostly just looked pretty.

“They should have sent someone else,” Bucky maintained. Steve agreed with a noncommittal noise, but he was already more than three-quarters sold on the vault alone. Unless the contractor was a complete ass, Steve didn’t think it was likely that the Hammer Ultra9000 would be showing its pretty panels in his gallery any time soon.

“Who did they send?” Steve asked as they came to the bottom of the stairs and rounded the corner. Steve stepped around Sam, glancing up at the three lines of paint he’d rolled onto the wall. “No pink,” he tossed over his shoulder, interrupting Bucky’s answer.

“It’s not pink,” Sam insisted. “It’s ‘Golden Prune’!”

“No pink,” Steve repeated firmly. Sam deliberately rolled a thick stipe of the ‘Golden Prune’ shade across the prepared wall, and then winced. He glowered at Steve and gave him a rude gesture. “Sorry,” Steve said to Bucky, looking back to the packet. “Who did they send?”

“The CEO,” Bucky said, his face twisted, obviously not sure if he was grudgingly impressed or put off by the show.

“They sent the CEO?” Steve asked frowning. “They must really hate Hammer.” He shouldered the lobby door open and stopped, eyes automatically catching on a familiar form sprawled in a waiting chair. He looked different without his pajamas on, but Steve would recognize that casually tousled head of hair anywhere. He smiled automatically, not sure how Tony had tracked him down, but not upset to see him. Steve parted his lips to say hello and belatedly realized that the lobby was otherwise empty. Tony’s eyes met his and went through the same quick recognition.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Bucky hissed softly at his shoulder. “You slept with _Tony Stark?”_

Blinking, Steve blurted, “You gave me your real name?”

Hiking an eyebrow, Tony held up one of Steve’s business cards. “Look who’s talking.” His eyes narrowed he leaned back to give them an assessing gaze. “Well, let’s get the awkwardness out of the way right off the bat. I’m not giving you a lower bid.”

Steve frowned, and then his face flushed angrily. “Excuse me?”

Tony stood in one smooth motion, and – even annoyed – Steve couldn’t help but watch his hips move as he crossed the space between them. Ignoring Bucky, Tony stopped a foot away from Steve and looked up at him curiously. “You really didn’t recognize me last night,” he said slowly, blinking, obviously startled.

“Of course I didn’t,” Steve snapped. “What are you doing here? Who sends the CEO for a small contract like this?”

“First, I’m not the CEO anymore, technically I’m a consultant. Second, you obviously haven’t met Pepper Potts.” Tony took his rose-tinted glasses off and gave Steve another once-over. Steve could practically feel Bucky boiling at his side as the moment stretched. Tony apparently noticed too, and turned to give Bucky the same treatment, unconcerned when Bucky shifted into a blatantly hostile stance in response.

Finally, the moment broke. Tony took a step back and offered them both a politely professional smile. “Want to show me where my vault’s going?”

“Who says you’ve got the contract?” Bucky growled.

“The fact that my competition is Justin Hammer with his laughable Hammer Ultra9000? I could break into that vault with a paperclip and a piece of chewing gum. But feel free to install it, I’ll be happy to come back after the nearest enterprising art thief has made off with a priceless painting or twelve.”

“Not cocky, or anything,” Bucky muttered unhappily.

“Just because I’m cocky doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” Tony winked at him and Bucky bristled.

Steve sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He started to laugh, first as a low chuckle that made his chest vibrate, and finally as a full, stomach clenching bought of what he would freely admit sounded a lot like giggling. Bucky poked him in the side with two fingers and Steve sucked in a few deep breaths to calm himself. He gestured to Tony with one hand and led him through the lobby doors into the unfinished gallery, Bucky right on their heels.

“Ouch,” Tony said, wincing at Sam’s paint samples. “The pink is a little _yikes_ , there.”

Sam glared at him. “Who is this?” he asked, his voice just barely on the correct side of polite, brush roller steadily dripping a pale mint green paint to the tarp. A silent conversation passed between Sam and Bucky and Sam’s eyebrows went up. His forefinger came out and flicked between Steve and Tony. “Is this…?” he looked at Steve with both eyes wide. “You slept with _Tony Stark?_ ”

Making an annoyed noise, Steve pulled ahead of Bucky to lead the way to the private gallery and the space designated for the vault.

“Interesting friends you’ve got here,” Tony commented casually, stretching his legs to keep up. He waited until they were around the corner and out of Bucky’s sight to reach out and catch Steve by one wrist. Before Steve could react, Tony had him pinned against the wall for a brief, forceful kiss. “You snuck out this morning,” he tutted.

“I left you my phone number,” Steve said, trying to remember that he was annoyed and embarrassed by unintentionally picking up one of his sort-of-employees at a club. It was hard to do with his heart happily pounding away and one of his marks just barely peeking out from below Tony’s collar.

Tony made a noncommittal noise. “Doesn’t count. Make it up to me – you free tonight?”

“If it involves coffee and pancakes, I am,” Steve replied without a thought for the lecture he was going to get from Bucky in the morning.

“Done and done,” Tony said. He winked at Steve and stepped away. Between one step and the next, he transitioned into the smooth businessman, and if Bucky looked suspicious when he followed them into the room a moment later, it was most likely just the stupid smile on Steve’s face.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> Originally posted on Tumblr as a prompt. You can find the original here: http://lightshadowverisimilitude.tumblr.com/post/125317662400/for-the-quick-prompts-one-night-stand-before-the
> 
> Come see me and say hi!
> 
> I make it a point to respond to all of my comments, even if it's just to say "thank you." (Though I can't promise speed) If you don't want/need a response, feel free to include NRN (no reply needed) in your comment!


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